Nobel Laureates Criticize India
For Holding Prominent Doctor

By

Krishna Pokharel

Updated May 12, 2008 10:34 a.m. ET

NEW DELHI -- A group of 22 Nobel laureates has sent a letter to the Indian government criticizing the incarceration of prominent doctor and human-rights worker Binayak Sen and asking that he be released to receive a global health award later this month.

Dr. Sen, 58 years old, has been in prison in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh for the past year, charged with passing notes from a Naxalite leader he was treating in jail to someone outside the prison. Naxalites are Maoist rebels who are waging a war against the Indian...